Bill Shorten will be hoping his campaign hasn't entered its dog days as he sought out some puppy love on Saturday.
The Labor leader snuggled trainee guide dogs in Melbourne - including a five-week-old labrador puppy named after him - and shook paws.
"This is as nice as it looks," he told the waiting media as he received puppy kisses, before joking the pointy teeth gnawing on his thumb were "not as sharp as your clever questions".
Mr Shorten has promised Guide Dogs Victoria $2 million to help it finish an upgrade of its ageing campus in Kew if Labor wins the May 18 election.
"Every day that one of your animals works with a person ... what you are doing is you are removing the barriers so that people with disability can have an equal go," he told some of the volunteer puppy raisers.
"If not every Australian starts with a fair go, it's our job to help bring them up to that standard."
The new training facility and accommodation for blind people learning to work with their new guide dogs will be the world's first fully accessible sensory campus.
It will use lighting, scent, technology, Braille and other tactile features to aid learning for people with low vision or blindness.
The centre is in the seat of Kooyong held by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg with a safe 12.8 per cent margin.
Despite this, Mr Shorten labelled it and neighbouring Higgins, where the Liberals have a 7.4 per cent margin against the Greens, as "marginal seats".
"I want to be clear, this is a very close election but we are making every post a winner as best we can," he told reporters.
His "bus captain", NSW senator Kristina Keneally, predicted the "negative, nasty, lying campaign" from the Liberals would only get worse as the election enters its final week.
"They've tried every other scare campaign, they're trying every other desperate tactic ... and I bet my bottom dollar this week it's going to be a lying scare campaign when it comes to negative gearing," she said.
Mr Shorten also addressed a rally for supporters of the ABC, guaranteeing the national broadcaster would have its funding boosted under a Labor government.
"We'll make sure that B1 never has to walk alone," he declared, referring to a lone man at the back of the crowd dresses as one of the Bananas in Pyjamas.
If it wins power, Labor will start discussions with the ABC's management about moving funding to a five-year basis instead of the current three years.
Mr Shorten also promised to give $40 million to the ABC and $20 million to SBS to boost the amount of Australian content and stories the public broadcasters screen.
Later in the afternoon, he helped launch Labor's arts policy.
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